Collaborative Augmented Reality

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Collaborative Augmented Reality

• Mark Billinghurst
• HIT Lab, University of Washington

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Todays Technology

• Video Conferencing
• lack of spatial cues
• limited participants
• 2D collaboration
• Collaborative VEs
• separation from real world
• reduced conversational cues

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Beyond Video Conferencing

• 2D Interface onto 3D
• VRML
• Projection Screen
• CAVE, WorkBench
• Volumetric Display
• scanning laser
• Virtual Reality
• natural spatial cues

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Beyond Virtual Reality

• Immersive Virtual Reality
• separates from real world
• reduces conversational cues
• Lessons from CSCW
• Seamless
• Enhance Reality

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Seamless CSCW

• Seam (Ishii et. al.)
• spatial, temporal, functional discontinuity
• Types of Seams
• Functional
• between different functional workspaces
• Cognitive
• between different work practices

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Functional Seams
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Cognitive Seams
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Effect of Seams

• Functional Seams
• Mediated differs from F-to-F Conversation
• Loss of Gaze Information
• Degradation of Non-Verbal Cues
• Cognitive Seams
• Learning Curve Effects
• User Frustration

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Collaborative Augmented Reality

• Attributes
• Virtuality
• Augmentation
• Cooperation
• Independence
• Individuality
• Merges task space and communication space
• No Functional Seams
• Blends Reality and Virtual Reality
• No Cognitive Seams

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Collaborative AR Systems

• Face to Face Conferencing
• Studierstube (TU Vienna)
• Shared Space (HITL)
• AR2 Hockey (MR Systems Lab)
• Remote Conferencing
• WearCom (BT/HITL)
• AR Conferencing Space (HITL)
• Transitional
• VLEGO II (NAIST)
• MagicBook (HITL)

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Face to Face Conferencing
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Demonstration

• Face to Face
• Collaborative AR Viewing

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Shared Space (Siggraph 99)

• Goal
• create compelling collaborative AR interface
  usable by novices
• Exhibit content
• matching card game
• face to face collaboration
• physical objects
• 5x7 cards
• built on VRML parser

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Results

• 2,500 - 3,000 users
• Observations
• no problems with the interface
• only needed basic instructions
• physical objects easy to manipulate
• spontaneous collaboration

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User Results
1 not very easy 7 very easy
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User Feedback

• Subject survey (157 people)
• Easy to play with other people
• Easy to interact with virtual objects
• Best features
• interactivity, how fun it was, ease of use
• Improvements
• reduce lag, improve image quality, better HMD
• Applications
• games, education

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Remote Collaboration
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Augmented Reality Conferencing

• Moves conferencing from the desktop to the
  workspace

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Demonstration

• Remote
• Collaborative AR Viewing

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Pilot Study

• How does AR conferencing differ ?
• Task
• discussing images
• 12 pairs of subjects
• Conditions
• audio only (AC)
• video conferencing (VC)
• mixed reality conferencing (MR)

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Presence
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Communication
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Results

• Subjective Results
• AR conferencing can increase presence
• AR conferencing can improve communication
• AR more difficult to use than audio/video
• Difficult to see everything
• Communication asymmetries
• Confounding Factors
• task - not strictly conversation
• HMD - limited field of view, resolution
• only two users

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Lessons Learned

• Face to face collaboration
• AR preferred over immersive VR
• AR facilitates seamless/natural communication
• Remote Collaboration
• AR spatial cues can enhance communication
• AR conferencing improves video conferencing
• AR supports transitional interfaces

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Areas for Future Work

• Wearable collaborative AR system
• opportunistic collaboration
• just in time training
• Communication Asymmetries
• interface, expertise, roles
• Usability Studies
• multi-user AR systems
• communication tasks

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Data Visualization in the Future